Meanwhile, after his brother had been rejected, Eadweard the ætheling is consecrated king, as his father had ordered. The star of a comet was seen in the autumn.
In the 977^th year the greatest synod was celebrated in East Anglia at a township called Kirklington. Afterwards, at Calne, while another synod was being celebrated, the high-born men of all England who had assembled there fell to the ground from a loft—apart from the holy Dunstan: some of them died and some, indeed, barely escaped the danger of death.
In the 978^th year Eadweard, king of the English, was unjustly eliminated by his men on the instructions of his stepmother, Queen Ælfthryth—pierced by a concealed knife in a place which is called the gap of Corfe—and he is buried, not in a royal fashion, at Wareham. His brother, Æthelred, the illustrious ætheling, polite in manners, fair in countenance, and elegant in appearance, was consecrated as king on the Sunday after the feast of Easter, on 14 April, by the holy archbishops, Dunstan and Oswald, and 10 bishops, at Kingston. He reigned for 38 years with many disasters on account of the murder of his brother, ⊗ who his mother had unjustly eliminated. The blessed Dunstan, [however],¹ filled with a prophetic spirit, ⊗ predicted to him that these same disasters were going to happen to him during his reign, with these words: ‘Because’, he said, ‘you have obtained the ⊗ kingdom through the death of your brother whom your shameful mother killed, hear ⊗ therefore the word of the Lord. The Lord said this: the sword shall not depart from your house, raging against you all the days of your life, killing your offspring until the time when your kingdom is conveyed to a foreign kingdom, whose custom and language the people you govern do not know; nor will your sin, and your mother’s sin, and the sins of the men who killed on vile advice, be atoned for unless by lengthy punishment.’ Thereupon, after this, a cloud was seen throughout all England in the middle of the night—sometimes blood-red, sometimes on fire. Afterwards, about dawn, it disappeared, changing into disparate beams and diverse colours.

In the 979^th year Pope John died; Benedict succeeded him. Ælfthryth, formerly queen, the murderess of King Eadweard, built two monasteries—that is, Warewelle and Amesbury—by reason of penitence. Ælfhere, ealdorman of the Mercians, came with a great number of people to Wareham, and ordered that the body of St Eadweard, king and martyr, be raised from the tomb, where many miracles had happened. Once it had been uncovered, it was found safe and sound from all destruction and pollution. Then, washed and clothed in new garments, it was borne to Shaftesbury and buried honourably.
In the 980^th year Pope Benedict died; Dionysus, the 140^th, succeeded him. Southampton is laid waste by Danish pirates, and almost all its citizens were either killed or led away as captives. Later the island of Thanet and Cheshire are destroyed by Norwegian pirates.

In the 981^st year the monastery of St Petroc in Cornwall was destroyed by the same pirates, and they made frequent raids in Cornwall itself, and in Devon, in the vicinity of the coasts.
In the 982^nd year Pope Dionysus died; Boniface succeeded him, dying in the same year; Pope Benedict succeeded him. 4 ships of pirates, landing in Dorset-shire, ravaged Portland. The city of London was consumed by fire.
In the 983^rd year Ælfhere, ealdorman of the Mercians, kinsman of King Eadgar of England, died, and his son, Ælfric, received his ealdormanry.